Aaron David Miller

Now working at different think tanks, Aaron David Miller was a longtime adviser to the State Department, especially on Arab-Israeli diplomacy. He is a perfect archetype of the "establishment intellectual." His career has been defined by his devoted, businesslike guardianship of American power. Accordingly, his opinions merit attention. I say this not because I agree with him - which I generally don't, on moral grounds - but because he offers a window into the mindset that prevails among the top echelons of policy formulation.

In my recent blog posts on Egypt and Syria (Jul. 19, Aug. 19), I made the inference that both countries' levels of instability are within acceptable levels and that, when all is said and done, neither state is a vital concern for US geostrategy. The administration would of course prefer things to be different in both cases, but can live with them as they are for now.

Miller had this to say in his latest piece in the Foreign Policy journal, in which he approvingly evaluates Obama's Middle East policy:

I'd be surprised if he's tossing and turning at night over Egypt and Syria.

The region as a whole is a critical foreign policy issue; on an individual basis, its constituent states, especially ones lacking natural resources, are less so.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/19/obama_egypt_middle_east_policy_makes_perfect_sense